Cars, Dolphins, Bad Teeth--This Is a Computer Show?

Analysis: Beyond the pavilions and by the hot-dog stands are high-tech wannabes with dreams displayed on folding tables.

Dennis O'Reilly, PCWorld.com

LAS VEGAS-- Comdex Fall 2000 demonstrates one of the dark sides of convergence: It's getting hard to tell the trade shows apart. And, if current trends continue, someday there will just be one big, unending trade show that all industries, no matter how unrelated, will share.

I begin to realize this when I come upon the Mercedes booth.

It's kind of hard to miss this booth if you spend any time at all at Comdex. A huge banner with the famous car company's logo hangs over a display that sits right smack dab in the middle of what is supposed to be one of the world's biggest computer confabulations.

Computing on a Different Road

I think, "must be early for next week's auto show, or maybe the auto show was last week and they had a hard time dismantling their display." No, the Mercedes man says, if you go over here at so-and-so time we'll give you a ride in a real Mercedes, and it has a computer in it. Hmmm, I can't recall seeing an Intel pavilion at the last auto show I attended, but it's just a matter of time.

I don't get very far past the row of new Mercedes when I see somebody selling furniture. "Now it's the home and garden show," I'm thinking. But no again, this time what I mistook for a TV table is a travel accessory that stows a fold-out notebook computer table in a carry-on bag.

Azpac International's Flightables cost from $129 to $169 and will probably be cluttering airport terminals around the world by the end of the year. Of course, it won't take more than a few more months for the FAA to declare that the devices are air-safety hazards, and then the only people using them will be Three-Card Monte dealers.

Point, Click, Shave

It's hard to avoid thinking about hustlers while one is in Las Vegas, but before I get too carried away with the existential strangeness of this place, I stumble upon another electronic oddity. In a back corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center, between a set of fire doors and a hot-dog pushcart, are arrayed J&J Magnetic's Little Dolphins.

In their matching stands they look like their namesakes jumping out of the water. But what do these brightly colored plastic forms do? They out-mouse your mouse. You don't slide the Little Dolphin along a desktop or other surface; you grab it like a handle and roll your thumb to position the cursor.

Quite a few people may find a cursor-control device you grab more comfortable than one you push and slide, but what will doom this product is not its functionality. It's that it looks exactly like a woman's shaver.

Comdex Offers Outer Space Oddities

I am just about complete in my circumambulation of the convention, and I admit my concentration is waning. This explains why I walk by the "Recognized by NASA" sign twice before it registers. What computer products would NASA bother recognizing? A closer look reveals a product not only recognized by NASA, but also certified by the Space Awareness Alliance, the official awareness campaign of the U.S. space community, as a "Certified Space Technology."

Some high-tech satellite communication system? Or maybe a super-lightweight video camera? Uh, no. Mattresses and pillows. The Tempur-Pedic Swedish Sleep Systems and Neck Pillows are made of a material created by NASA to cushion astronauts during lift-offs and flight. Fagerdala Industries of Sweden has created a "viscoelastic, open-celled, temperature-sensitive material" clinically proven to give you a deeper, more restful sleep. What does this have to do with computers? Maybe Fagerdala Industries understands that the people most in need of a good night's sleep are computer users.

Bits and Bytes... and Bites

All the talk about space-aware sleep makes me glad that my Comdex wanderings are almost over. Before I can call it a convention, however, I need to revisit a couple of the vendors I missed on my first pass. I return to the Microsoft Pavilion to check on MarchFirst, but they still aren't there. I guess I'm early. Or late. I'm impressed by the company's colorful brochure, though. It provides absolutely no indication of what MarchFirst does, which is the sign of a sure hit.

After leaving Microsoftville I run by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's minibooth, but no one is there, only a stack of the group's standard propaganda. I figure they probably locked themselves out of their hotel room again.

It wouldn't be a Comdex without at least one heartache. This year's biggest disappointment, without question, is the absence of Billy Bob Teeth of Las Vegas, purveyor of false joke teeth.

Was there ever in the history of this industry a more forlorn sight than the empty Billy Bob Teeth booth? Nothing is left but a white sign with black letters and a mystery the size of the Hoover Dam. What became of Billy Bob? Waylaid by a Texas dental emergency? Perhaps the answer will reveal itself at a future Comdex. We are left only with our hope. (See PCWorld.com Comdex Coverage.)